Some twenty years ago I started baby sitting a sweet little toddler down the street from our home named Donald. A regular baby sitting job for one of the sweetest little families through really all of my teen years and even after I had my own little boy. And oh how my maw-maw loved having that sweet little fella around during the years that I lived with her too! Now Donald is a grown man and happily married. How is that possible really?

Now his mom, Molly, and I stay in touch on Facebook. A few days ago Molly private messaged me to double check my mailing address. I didn’t think much of it and just gave it to her of course. This afternoon one of my neighbors knocked on our door with a package that had my name and their address. I was a bit confused because I didn’t remember ordering anything here lately. Much to my surprise and my four little monsters huge delight, Molly had mailed us a king cake along with a get well soon card for me!

I am truly thankful to be blessed with such kind hearted genuine friends all these years later! Thank you so much Molly! By the way, Buggie was the proud king cake baby finder!

Tonight my lil monsters got to talk to their Paw-Paw via FaceTime as they do daily. The 600 miles between them has nothing on the bond they share. Only tonight they enjoyed chatting with my sister, their Lin-Lin. And loved being silly for an endless amount of time with my Godson, their cousin, Parker Baby. Though today he informed us he is not a baby! He’s THREE now! I can’t get over how much he looks like his mama! It’s been 15 months since we’ve seen my sister and nephews/Godson. To say we miss them would be an understatement.

I love stumbling upon these types of blogs through Facebook or Pinterest and being able to share them with my children, this one is for our only son. I think we’ve covered all of twenty of these facts, but as he is about to turn 18, a good reminder never hurts, right?

“20 Things a Mother Should Tell Her Son”

1. Play a sport. It will teach you how to win honorably, lose gracefully, respect authority, work with others, manage your time and stay out of trouble. And maybe even throw or catch.

2. You will set the tone for the sexual relationship, so don’t take something away from her that you can’t give back.

3. Use careful aim when you pee. Somebody’s got to clean that up, you know.

4. Save money when you’re young because you’re going to need it some day.

5. Allow me to introduce you to the dishwasher, oven, washing machine, iron, vacuum, mop and broom. Now please go use them.

6. Pray and be a spiritual leader.

7. Don’t ever be a bully and don’t ever start a fight, but if some idiot clocks you, please defend yourself.

8. Your knowledge and education is something that nobody can take away from you.

9. Treat women kindly. Forever is a long time to live alone and it’s even longer to live with somebody who hates your guts.

10. Take pride in your appearance.

11. Be strong and tender at the same time.

12. A woman can do everything that you can do. This includes her having a successful career and you changing diapers at 3 A.M. Mutual respect is the key to a good relationship.

13. “Yes ma’am” and “yes sir” still go a long way.

14. The reason that they’re called “private parts” is because they’re “private”. Please do not scratch them in public.

15. Peer pressure is a scary thing. Be a good leader and others will follow.

16. Bringing her flowers for no reason is always a good idea.

17. Be patriotic.

18. Potty humor isn’t the only thing that’s humorous.

19. Please choose your spouse wisely. My daughter-in-law will be the gatekeeper for me spending time with you and my grandchildren.

I had decided I wanted to do something special for our lil monsters this month. Starting on February 1st through Valentine’s day I decided I was going to hang a heart with a special message for each of them. Sort of like the little conversation heart candies. It turned out to mean more to Bunny than I could have imagined, as I ended up having to have a major surgery that has landed me in bed for basically this entire month. Since I knew I would be stuck in bed, I decided to hang them all the night before my surgery. I gave each of our monsters their own color heart and wrote their nicknames and dates on them and mixed them all up. I hung them on three doors in our home. Each day they were able to look for their heart for the day and see what message I had left for them. Each unique for each child. Life gets so busy and it saddens me to think we as parents can so easily caught up in parenting that I never want to risk the chance of only pointing out bad behavior. In doing this they had fourteen days in a row of positive notes full of love and some of the things about them and things they do that make us proud to be their parents. Granted it would take me a lot more than fourteen days to tell them everything about them that makes me proud to be their mama. But this is a nifty start as well as a cute Valentine’s decoration for our home to celebrate the month of love!

So thankful to all of my amazing family & friends. Their thoughts and prayers have been so comforting this morning. Can’t wait to get through this surgery and healed to be taking care of my beautiful little family.